‘Life isn’t what it could have been’: 10 years on, grief over Rohith Vemula endures

For Raja, his brother’s death marked a major turning point. Until then an aspiring scientist with a postgraduate degree from Puducherry, his life took a complete U-turn — from living a carefree life to being forced to earn a living, driving a goods tempo between Guntur and Tenali in 2017. Eventually, he enrolled in law, which he completed in 2020.

In 2024, Raja landed a job at a software company but had to quit to take care of his mother. Now, apart from taking up social justice cases, he drives rental cars.

“At that time, I was carefree, not knowing what life had in store for me. Now, I am a different person,” Raja Vemula said in an earlier interaction with The Indian Express. “My brother showed us the way, so my mother and I travel along this path of fighting for social justice for people who come from marginalised backgrounds.”

Since Rohith’s death, the family’s consistent demand has been that the government institute a Rohith Vemula Act to combat caste discrimination in academic spaces. Both the Karnataka and Telangana Congress governments have shown interest in passing this legislation, but it has faced political opposition.

But it is not only Rohith’s family whose lives have been upended. Rohith’s death has also his friends — four research scholars who were expelled along with him from the hostel and subjected to a social boycott — shaken.

For Dontha Prashanth, now a faculty member in a private university, life will never be the same.

“Since 2016, life hasn’t been as it could have been. Losing someone that close has made it difficult for every one of us,” he said.

Meanwhile, having not found any teaching opportunities, Sunkanna Velpula, another of Rohith’s friends, was forced to turn to farming.

This year, after finding that farming does not yield sufficient income, he turned to pig rearing.

“Even after having a PhD and a Post Doctorate degree, I didn’t get any teaching opportunities. I had applied to several institutions but never got interview calls. So, to provide for my family, I turned to farming,” Velpula said. “I now have a unit of 40 pigs and hope that this will multiply to 100 by the end of the year.”

He’s also thinking of launching his own political party on a social justice platform.

“I want to remain active in politics,” Velpula said.

Meanwhile, fellow scholars Seshaiah Chemudugunta and Vijay Kumar Pedapudi were not available for comment.

Just ahead of Rohith’s 10th death anniversary, the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) issued a statement reiterating its demand for a Rohith Vemula Act.

“Rohith Vemula’s death was not an individual tragedy, it was [the] outcome of institutional caste violence enabled by university administration, political interference and the complicity of the state,” the statement said.

It further said: “Ten years on, justice has been consistently denied, while caste discrimination in higher education continues to take new, insidious forms through exclusion, surveillance, suspension, mental harassment and the silencing of Dalit-Bahujan voices.”

On January 17, the ASA and other student outfits will organise an event ‘Shahadat Din’ to commemorate Rohith Vemula. The families of two other students who died of alleged caste discrimination — Payal Tadvi and Darshan Solanki — and Congress leader Jignesh Mevani will be part of the event.